Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - Printable Version

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Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - Magda Hassan - 24-08-2013

Report: Hastings Feared Tampering On Rented Mercedes

By David J. Krajicek on Aug 23, 2013

A coroner's report that found traces of narcotics in the remains of journalist Michael Hastings has helped frame the prevailing story of his death as a tragic, troubled-soul narrative.
He apparently had relapsed into drug use, and just hours before the muckraker was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, a sibling had arrived to urge him into rehab.
But in the broadest post-mortem profile to date, Gene Maddaus writes in the LA Weekly that Hastings told a neighbor he feared that the rental Mercedes sedan he died in had been tampered with. Maddaus writes:
"One night in June, he came to (neighbor Jordanna) Thigpen's apartment after midnight and urgently asked to borrow her Volvo. He said he was afraid to drive his own car. She declined, telling him her car was having mechanical problems.
"He was scared, and he wanted to leave town," she says.
"The next day, around 11:15 a.m., she got a call from her landlord, who told her Hastings had died early that morning. His car had crashed into a palm tree at 75 mph and exploded in a ball of fire."
The profile said Hastings was depressed and feared he was being watched by the government. "His behavior grew increasingly erratic," Maddaus writes. He added, "Interviews with friends as well as the coroner's report suggest that Hastings' mental health was deteriorating."
Hastings, 33, was a crusading journalist who died when his speeding Mercedes slammed into a palm tree at 4:20 a.m. June 18 on a 35 mph stretch of North Highland Avenue in L.A.'s Hancock Park neighborhood.
In its report released this week, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Department concluded that the death was an accident.
Dr. James K. Ribe, L.A. County's senior deputy medical examiner, said traces of amphetamine found in Hastings's blood sample was "consistent with possible intake of methamphetamine many hours before death." He said traces of marijuana metabolite in his blood also indicated "intake hours earlier."
Ribe said Hastings died of "blunt force trauma consistent with a high speed front-end impact" and that narcotics were "unlikely contributory to death."
The report's narrative included several mentions of Hastings's alleged use of various narcotics, apparently based largely upon comments from the brother who was attempting to intervene.
But another Hastings family member told WhoWhatWhy that the coroner's report was "irresponsible." The family member said via email, "The LAPD has done a really sloppy job investigating his case, and they were hoping for a mother lode of drugs in his system. When they didn't get it in the toxicology lab results (science!), they had to insert speculation throughout their field report to compensate for their lack of an investigation. It's so irresponsible."
Dr. Ribe, who signed Hastings's autopsy report, has been on the L.A. County coroner's staff for more than 25 years. Like many big-city pathologists, he has been involved in a number of high-profile cases and controversies.
But Ribe is the rare coroner whose credibility has been officially called into question by a panel of judges.
In 2003, a California appeals court dismissed a murder conviction because prosecutors had failed to disclose to the defense that Ribe, a trial witness, had "credibility problems" and "a history of changing his testimony," according to an account in the Los Angeles Times.

The ruling cited five instances in which Ribe changed his findings in homicide cases.
In addition, Ribe was involved in a controversy concerning the 2005 death of Eliza Jane Scovill, age 3. The coroner ruled that the child died of AIDS. Her mother, Christine Maggiore, is an HIV-positive activistand a controversial figure in her own rightwho has vehemently questioned Ribe's ruling on the cause of death.
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/08/23/report-hastings-feared-tampering-on-rented-mercedes/

Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - Peter Lemkin - 07-10-2013

The CIA to Provide New Details into Hastings Death

By Kimberly Dvorak / October 6th, 2013inShare
[Image: 0050untitled.png?w=307&h=200&crop=1]

San Diego 6 continues to receive numerous inquiries regarding the status of its investigation into the death of National Security reporter Michael Hastings. Hastings died in a single car accident in Los Angeles on June 18, 2013. Videos of the crash scene depict several explosions that resulted in a huge fireball. The 911 call transcripts obtained by San Diego 6 also confirmed multiple explosions.

The Los Angeles Police Department determined early in the investigation process that no foul play was suspected in Hastings' single car accident, yet nearly four months later the LAPD refuses to release its investigative report.
Documents and emails obtained by SD6 from LA Supervising Criminalist Dan Anderson, clearly states the LA coroner reported drugs and alcohol were NOT factors in the accident despite widespread news reports to the contrary.
In response to San Diego 6â€²s FOIAs, LAPD asserted a federal investigation may be pending as a reason for not releasing public information. However, the LA FBI office reported there was no investigation. Curiously a file on Hastings from the FBI obtained by Al Jazeera reveals the federal government considered Mr. Hastings' work controversial enough to keep an active file but redacted much of the report.
A number of efforts to learn more details about the 2013 Mercedes has been met with roadblocks because LAPD Detective White has not closed the case. As a result the leased Mercedes is off limits and Mercedes spokespeople will not comment on the accident. This suggests LAPD still has possession of the car.
Currently, San Diego 6 is waiting for more FOIA information from the FBI, DHS, DOJ, and Dept of the Army.
This week the CIA responded to a written request by stating it will provide some information on Mr. Hastings, but declined to answer any questions regarding connections between Mr. Hastings, jailed journalist Barrett Brown or Reddit's deceased founder, Aaron Schwarz.
Interestingly, the CIA asserted federal law, which prohibits it from spying on Americans as the reason for not responding to FOIAs on Brown and Schwarz, but failed to explain why it had a file on Hastings.
The LAPD also responded to a FOIA request as to whether the ATF+E (explosive) was called to investigate the Hastings accident scene by referring SD6 to ATF+E. Earlier ATF's Chris Hoffman told San Diego 6 that he had no recollection of their dogs being sent to rule out foul play.
http://www.sandiego6.com/story/kimberly-dvorak-hastings-latest-20131006

Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - Magda Hassan - 07-10-2013

Mmmm....because the CIA always involves itself with car crashes?

Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - Peter Lemkin - 07-10-2013

Magda Hassan Wrote:Mmmm....because the CIA always involves itself with car crashes?

We can :

: always trust the CIA.... Its a bit strange....but what is not in this case.

Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - Magda Hassan - 19-10-2013

Radio-beam device can disable car and boat engines from 50m

16 October 2013 | By Jason Ford
[Image: 2043629_TE_car.jpg]

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E2V has developed a non-lethal weapon that can disable the engines of motor vehicles and small boats at a distance of up to 50m in under three seconds.

Dubbed RF Safe-Stop, the unit, which weighs approximately 350kg, has so far been integrated into Nissan Nevara and Toyota Land Cruisers and is designed to temporarily disable a vehicle's electronic systems and bring it to a halt. Such non-lethal systems are said to be particularly suited to stopping vehicles suspected as being used as car bombs.
Andy Wood, product manager at e2v, told The Engineer that RF Safe-Stop can be fitted also into ground, fixed base installations, rib-type boats and that there are blueprint' ideas to integrate it into a helicopter.
Such non-lethal systems generate intense RF (radio frequency) pulses and Wood euphemistically said these pulses confuse' a vehicle's electronics, rendering them temporarily inoperable.
RF Safe-Stop works differently on different vehicles although the principle of coupling electromagnetic waves into the target's wiring looms remain the same.
At the weight of frequencies we're taking about - L and S-Band - the wiring loom of, say a metreâ€¦is almost the perfect aerial,' said Wood.
The electromagnetic blast travels through the wiring loom as a series of pulses, arriving at the vehicle's engine management system or immobiliser to halt it.
Basically the ECU (engine control unit) or immobiliserâ€¦once affected, will try and reset. As long as you keep it confused' the engine won't restart.'
The RF generator is driven by a solid state modulator designed and built at Chelmsford-based e2v and Wood explained that a UPS unit has been added to systems designed for use on vehicles.
What we're assuming at the moment is if, for instance, you had a fully charged set of batteries you'd get about two hours of operation, use about a 10 per cent RF energy burst from it â€¦So [with] two hours stand-by, you get 12 minutes of RF operation,' he said.
If you've got it on a vehicle, or a boatâ€¦you could be trickle charging that all the time. Unless you exceed the 10 per cent duty cycle with something like a 100A (amp) alternator at 24V you shouldâ€¦not run out of power.'
Operators of RF Safe-Stop won't need specialist training as e2v is aiming for a system that that allows the user to do nothing more complicated than push a red button when the target is in range.
So long as he's got a green light on his display he knows he can push the red button and typically, in one operation, get a five second burst,' said Wood. Normally, the effect happens in three seconds. You should be pretty certain that with one shot you're going stop whatever engine it is you're trying to stop. Then you repeat as and when - if you see the person in the vehicle is trying to restart it you just give it another shot and demobilise the vehicle again.'
The company recently demonstrated RF Safe-Stop at DSEi and Wood said the technology has stimulated interest from 17 nations and five UK government bodies.
Wood believes orders for the system will be taken in the coming weeks, adding that e2v's dedicated applications team can tailor RF Safe-Stop according to requirements.
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/military-and-defence/news/radio-beam-device-can-disable-car-and-boat-engines-from-50m/1017308.article

Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - David Guyatt - 19-10-2013

If memory serves, this sort of technology has been around for a very long time. Indeed, think of all those UFO sightings where car engines cut out and their electrical systems failed.

Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - Magda Hassan - 19-10-2013

David Guyatt Wrote:If memory serves, this sort of technology has been around for a very long time. Indeed, think of all those UFO sightings where car engines cut out and their electrical systems failed.

Yes, if indeed they were actual UFOs or some other technology. And there are so many more ways to do it now with the various computerised components.

Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - David Guyatt - 19-10-2013

Magda Hassan Wrote:
David Guyatt Wrote:If memory serves, this sort of technology has been around for a very long time. Indeed, think of all those UFO sightings where car engines cut out and their electrical systems failed.
Yes, if indeed they were actual UFOs or some other technology. And there are so many more ways to do it now with the various computerised components.

Aye, I agree entirely.

UFO's are, or were, based on advanced Nazi era weapons, as described in Nick Cook's book The Hunt for Zero Point - technology captured or otherwise acquired by the US after WWII. They've had almost 70 years to mess around with this stuff, including HIRF guns that are though to be able to remotely bring down aircraft - let alone cars.

Quote:
Electromagnetic interference[edit]
On April 9, 1998, Elaine Scarry's article in The New York Review of Books, titled "The Fall of TWA 800: The Possibility of Electromagnetic Interference", was published. Scarry, a professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard, proposed that electromagnetic interference, also referred to as "High Intensity Radiated Fields" (HIRF), could have been the cause of the TWA 800 crash, specifically energy emitted from a U.S. military craft.[SUP][33][/SUP] Later that year, The New York Review of Books published a series of letters between Scarry and NTSB Chairman James Hall discussing the possibility of HIRF being causal to the accident, and what steps the NTSB was taking in its investigation to determine if it was a factor.[SUP][34][/SUP][SUP][35][/SUP]
After the adoption of the Final Report, Scarry published another article in the New York Review of Books titled "TWA 800 and Electromagnetic Interference: Work Already Completed and Work that Still Needs to be Done".[SUP][36][/SUP] While praising the initial research done by the NTSB into HIRFs, she also stated that much more additional research was needed.[SUP][36][/SUP]Scarry criticized what she felt was a bias in the investigation to the "meticulous" detailing of events inside the airplane, while not fully exploring the electromagnetic environment outside the airplane.[SUP][36][/SUP] Scarry focused on a U.S. Navy P-3 Orion close to TWA 800 as being a possible source of electromagnetic interference and cause of the CWT explosion on TWA 800.[SUP][36][/SUP]
Scarry has since written about Swissair 111 and Egypt Air 990 crashes in connection with electromagnetic radiation.[SUP][37][/SUP][SUP][38]

[/SUP]

Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - Magda Hassan - 04-06-2014

Why Was the FBI Investigating Michael Hastings' Reporting on Bowe Bergdahl?

By Alice Speri
June 4, 2014 | 6:40 am Three years into the disappearance of Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan, Michael Hastings the journalist whose reporting cost General Stanley McChrystal his job wrote a Rolling Stone story on the missing soldier, a piece which the magazine called "the definitive first account of Bowe Bergdahl."
Hastings, who died in a car accident in Los Angeles in June 2013, had unparalleled access for that story.
Last POW in Afghanistan has been freed. Read more here.

He spoke to Bergdahl's parents, who had by that time stopped talking to the press, following "subtle pressure" from the army, and he quoted from emails the young soldier had sent to them, documenting his growing disillusion with the war and the US military.
Hastings also spoke to several unnamed men in Bergdahl's unit soldiers who, we now know, had to sign a strict nondisclosure agreement forbidding them from discussing the soldier's disappearance and search with anyone let alone one of the top investigative journalists in the country.

'Michael and Matt both worked really, really hard on that story, and I know for a fact that they did it in a way that completely angered the US military and the US government.'

But most controversially, Hastings' piece revealed what has been the subject of much debate and vitriol over the last few days: That a disillusioned Bergdahl had actually abandoned his post and "walked away."
At the time of the story's publication, the media had all but forgotten about Bergdahl who was released on Saturday after five years in the hands of the Taliban, in exchange for five Guantanamo prisoners. And, with the exception of some initial chatter, Hastings' piece, which paints a deeply unflattering picture of Bergdahl's unit and its leadership, hardly had the impact of some of his other investigations.
But someone did pay attention to it: the FBI.
That, at least, is what was revealed in a heavily redacted document released by the agency following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed on the day of Hastings' death by investigative journalist Jason Leopold and Ryan Shapiro, an MIT doctoral student whom the Justice Department once called the "most prolific" requester of FOIA documents.
Superhero' suing feds over Nelson Mandela's 1962 arrest records. Read more here.
The document, partially un-redacted after Leopold and Shapiro engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the FBI for failing to fulfill its FOIA obligations, singles out Hastings' Rolling Stone piece "America's Last Prisoner of War" as "controversial reporting." It names Hastings and Matthew Farwell, a former soldier in Afghanistan and a contributing reporter to Hastings' piece.

'If this deployment is lame, I'm just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan.'

The document also included an Associated Press report based on the Rolling Stone piece, and what it identifies as a "blog entry" penned by Gary Farwell, Matthew's father which actually appears to be a comment entry on the Idaho Statesman's website.
"The article reveals private email excerpts, from [redacted] to his parents. The excerpts include quotes about being ashamed to even be American,' and threats that, If this deployment is lame, I'm just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan,'" the FBI file reads. "The Rolling Stone article ignited a media frenzy, speculating about the circumstances of [redacted] capture, and whether US resources and effort should continue to be expended for his recovery."

'I'm happy the FBI is reading Rolling Stone on the job.'

The FBI file as well as a Department of Justice document released in response to Leopold and Shapiro's lawsuit suggests that Hastings and Farwell's reporting got swept up into an "international terrorist investigation" into Bergdahl's disappearance.
A spokesperson for the FBI told VICE News that the agency does not normally comment on pending investigations and that it lets FOIA documents "speak for themselves." The investigation was still pending as of last month, Leopold said.
According to the files and a rare public statement by the FBI following Hastings' death Hastings was never directly under investigation by the agency, despite having pissed off a lot of people in very high places.
White House defends prisoner swap to free American POW. Read more here.
But it is not exactly clear why Hastings and Farwell's "controversial" reporting made it into a criminal investigation that was already active before they even wrote the Rolling Stone story.

'The FBI says Hastings was not a target of their investigation but his reporting was. How do you investigate someone's reporting without investigating them?'

"Michael and Matt both worked really, really hard on that story, and I know for a fact that they did it in a way that completely angered the US military and the US government, and while other reporters were steering away from it, they were totally on it," Leopold told VICE News. "The FBI was investigating this, whether they were investigating Michael or investigating the story, and there was a lot of fear around it, because they characterized the story as controversial' whatever that means."
"Then the question became, why was the FBI looking at this, what were they looking at?" Leopold added. "The FBI says Hastings was not a target of their investigation but his reporting was. How do you investigate someone's reporting without investigating them?"
Farwell declined to discuss the details of the file, but told VICE News, "I'm happy the FBI is reading Rolling Stone on the job."
He had not known that his name, and his father's, showed up in the FBI's files until Leopold pointed it out to him. Leopold told VICE News: "When I showed Matt these files he was like, oh my god, this is basically outlining my conversations."
Entire paragraphs in the FBI documents remain redacted leaving many questions about the scope of the investigation into the journalists' work. But the un-redacted sections about Farwell characterize him as a 10th Mountain infantryman, who helped broker a meeting between Hastings and presumably some of the sources for the Rolling Stone story.

Now that Bergdahl is free, the lid on Pandora's box has been lifted.

In his comment on the Idaho Statesman's site, also picked up in the FBI file, Farwell Senior comes to Bergdahl's defense after the Rolling Stone article sparked backlash against the soldier, of a similar sort that we are seeing today. He also credits his son for brokering Hastings' meeting with the Bergdahls.
"I'm going to excuse that young kid for his choice of words, but I'm not going to excuse the leadership of his outfit, nor the misguided policies of our government in Afghanistan and elsewhere which have put our young people in harms way without a clear vision of what they are doing," Farwell, himself a retired Air Force officer, wrote then. "It's my hope this Rolling Stone article helps the Bergdahl's get their son back and helps expose some misguided policies and conduct far above the pay grade of this young disillusioned soldier."
Now that Bergdahl is free, the lid on Pandora's box has been lifted.
"For five years, soldiers have been forced to stay silent about the disappearance and search for Bergdahl. Now we can talk about what really happened," Nathan Bradley Bethea, who served in Bergdahl's battalion, wrote in the Daily Beast on Monday. "I served in the same battalion in Afghanistan and participated in the attempts to retrieve him throughout the summer of 2009. After we redeployed, every member of my brigade combat team received an order that we were not allowed to discuss what happened to Bergdahl for fear of endangering him. He is safe, and now it is time to speak the truth."
"Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down," Bethea stated.
Soldiers forced to silence for years have now taken their accounts and anger about the missing soldier's ordeal to social media and the press. Republican strategists eager to turn Bergdahl into the next Benghazi have also jumped on the opportunity to offer critics of the young "deserter" up for interviews, as the New York Times noted today.

'As for the circumstances of his capture, when he is able to provide them, we'll learn the facts.'

In the last few days, Bergdahl has been blamed with the deaths of "every American soldier killed in Paktika Province in the four-month period that followed his disappearance," according to the Times charges that the Pentagon dismissed as unsubstantiated. Today it was reported that the army will launch an inquiry into the circumstances of Bergdahl's disappearance and his personal conduct.
"The questions about this particular soldier's conduct are separate from our effort to recover ANY U.S. service member in enemy captivity," General Martin E. Dempsey said in a Facebook post today. "As for the circumstances of his capture, when he is able to provide them, we'll learn the facts. Like any American, he is innocent until proven guilty. Our Army's leaders will not look away from misconduct if it occurred."
The Gitmo prisoner exchange puts deals above grim justice. Read more.
A US Army investigation into Bergdahl's own conduct might appease or inflame his critics. But even before Bergdahl's release, some soldiers were eager to talk.
And while there is no suggestion in the un-redacted bits of the FBI file on Hastings that the agency was after any soldier who had taken his frustrations to the press, the fact that the FBI was looking into the reporters' sources and methods raises at least the question.
Now, everyone wants to talk about it. But Hastings' ever "controversial" reporting got to it first.
https://news.vice.com/article/why-was-the-fbi-investigating-michael-hastings-reporting-on-bowe-bergdahl

Michael Hastings Dies in Suspicious Car 'Crash'..... - Drew Phipps - 04-06-2014

If the car was hacked, or disabled by some beam weapon, and that caused his death, why would it be necessary to cremate his body to remove evidence? Seems to me you'd want the drugs, and the trauma wounds, to be independently verifiable by some second source. You would only include "cremation of the body" (above and beyond the cremation at the crash site) in your plan in order to hide the cause of, or the time of, death. Or perhaps the exact nature of the trace amphetamines in his system. But if you've gone to the trouble of poisoning him in some subtle way, why blow up his car?

There is another bothersome aspect. The witness that saw sparks coming out from underneath the car implies that the engine or the transmission got loose before the crash. If the engine and transmission had been left behind, there would really be no way for a hacker to cause the car to hit a tree. Further, I doubt that hacking a car's software, or using an EM beam, imparts the option to 'eject" the car's engine or transmission. There must be more than one thing happening here to account for all these events.